Where the Wild Things Were

Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are, a book that gave me the creeps as a kid), was interviewed last week on Fresh Air. As I have grown older, my appreciation for the innovative and unconventional has grown.

Sendak, in his mid-80's, has penned a new book Bumble-ardy about an orphaned pig who vows to never turn ten after a birthday party goes awry and his aunt cracks the whip. The interview was both dear and distressing. SENDAK:

"I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready." Towards the end of the interview, he said that he "is going weeping to the grave." It was so poignant and painful I sighed deeply.

As I stared out my car windshield out in front of a Starbucks on a beautiful beginning of Fall afternoon, I felt a deep and profound pathos for the lostness that Sendak feels because He has not a hope in the One who conquered death. I just love how the Apostle Paul taunts death back by asking it a rhetorical question....

1 Corinthians 15:55

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?




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